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TOWARD REALISTIC U.S.–INDIA RELATIONS

GEORGE PERKOVICH

© 2010 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved.

Th e Carnegie Endowment does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented here are the author’s own and do not necessarily refl ect the views of the Endowment, its staff , or its trustees.

For electronic copies of this report, visit www.CarnegieEndowment.org/pubs.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NWWashington, D.C. 20036

Phone: 202 483 7600Fax: 202 483 1840

www.CarnegieEndowment.org

Contents 5 Summary

7 Introduction

11 Democracy

14 Development and Poverty Reduction

17 Policies Toward China and Defense Cooperation

26 Counterterrorism, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

33 Nuclear Cooperation and Nonproliferation

38 International Trade

39 Environment

41 UN Security Council

43 Conclusion

45 Notes

49 About the Author

51 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

5

Summary

A s he prepares to visit India in November, President Obama faces

criticism that his administration has done too little to enhance

U.S.–Indian relations. Pundits of this persuasion in Washington

and New Delhi complain that Obama’s team has tried too hard to

cooperate with China in addressing regional and global challenges and has

not done enough to bolster India.

In reality, the United States can only contribute marginally to

India’s success or failure. Th e actions of Indians at home and abroad will

determine which path India takes. Th e United States will have much more

infl uence on vital global issues—international fi nance and trade, the future

of the nuclear order, peace and security in Asia, climate change—that also

shape the environment in which India will succeed or fail. Th erefore, the

United States can best serve its interests and those of India by ensuring

that its policies toward India do not undermine the pursuit of wider

international cooperation on these global issues.

Th e imperative to strengthen the international system would obtain

even if India had the capabilities and intentions of working closely

with the United States to contest China. Yet, India’s interests, policies,

and diplomatic style will often diverge from those of the United States,

including in relation to China. Washington and New Delhi both want

their share of economic, military, and soft power to grow relative to

China’s (or at least not to fall), but both will also pursue cooperation with

Beijing. For the foreseeable future, the three states will operate a triangular

relationship, with none of them being close partners of the others. Th is is

another reason why promoting multilateral institution-building is a sound

U.S. strategy, and why India should be valued in its own right, not as a

partner in containing China.

Th is report analyzes American and Indian interests in a range of policy

domains in order to evaluate how the United States should balance its

policies toward India with its other priorities and responsibilities.

7

Introduction

S oon after the end of the George W. Bush presidency, many long-

time observers in India and Washington charged his successor

with abandoning the cause of elevating U.S.–India relations to the

pinnacle of American foreign policy priorities. Veteran Indian diplomat

Kanwal Sibal lamented, “Th e confi dence of the Indian establishment that

India–U.S. relations were set on a steep upward trajectory has eroded

noticeably with President Obama replacing President Bush.” Daniel

Twining, a former Bush administration offi cial, reported in the Weekly

Standard that Indians frequently say, “We miss Bush.” India’s strategic

community, he notes, is “concerned about (and in some cases, alarmed

by) the president’s approach to Pakistan; his strategy for Afghanistan; his

willingness to pursue a more robust Asia policy that raises the costs of

Chinese assertiveness; the absence of American leadership on trade; and his

commitment to treating India as a key power and partner in world aff airs

in a way consistent with Indians’ own sense of their country’s rising stature

and capabilities.”1 Th e Indian-born American scholar Sumit Ganguly wrote

in Newsweek this April that “Barack Obama is in danger of reversing all

the progress his predecessors, including George W. Bush, made in forging

closer U.S. ties with India. Preoccupied with China and the Middle East,

the Obama administration has allotted little room on its schedule for India,

and failed to get much done in the short time it did make.”2

Like a Rorschach test, commentary as President Obama prepares to go

to India tells us as much about the authors as it does about the president,

his policies, or India. Much of the commentary is negative, but this in part

refl ects the tendency of people to speak up only when they have something

negative to say. More interesting is the proclivity of critical Indian pundits

to yearn for the friendly presence of George W. Bush. For their part, many

American commentators see Chinese and Pakistani monsters sneaking

up behind Obama’s thin, unsuspecting frame and wonder why he is not

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

8

standing closer to India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Nostalgia often colors perceptions and mixes fact with wishful

projections. Former Bush administration offi cial Evan Feigenbaum notes

in Foreign Aff airs, “Many in India believe that the Obama administration

has tilted its policy toward Beijing in a way that undermines Indian

interests.” Yet, Feigenbaum rightly goes on to say, “Obama’s China policy is

broadly consistent with that of every U.S. president since Richard Nixon.”3

Obama has been tougher on Pakistan than Bush ever was (which is not

saying much). Even stalwart Republicans acknowledge that Obama’s

Afghanistan policy is struggling to clean up the damage caused by the

neglect and mismanagement of his predecessor.

Putting aside wishful or partisan thinking about the results of Bush

administration policy, one can easily see why some Indian elites long for

the exceptional favor the former

president bestowed on their

country. Bush did more for India

than he did for any NATO

ally, including the United

Kingdom, notwithstanding

Tony Blair’s lonely, reputation-

destroying support for the war

in Iraq. Blair urged the Bush

administration to try to ratify

the Comprehensive Test Ban

Treaty, revive negotiations on

a climate change treaty, and

expend political capital to revive

the Middle East peace process.

He was rebuff ed on all counts. India, on the other hand, spurned Bush’s

pleas to join the military coalition in Iraq and blocked his eff orts to restart

world trade liberalization and isolate Iran. Bush responded by giving India

a global nuclear deal so lopsided that one of its architects called it a “gift

horse.” Th e Bush administration off ered more and asked less of India than it

did of any other country, save perhaps Israel.

However, the special treatment of India was unrealistic and therefore

A sound and sustainable U.S. policy toward India should accurately refl ect multiple American, Indian, and global interests.

GEORGE PERKOVICH TOWARD REALISTIC U.S.–INDIA RELATIONS

9

unsustainable. Th e United States would be wise to continue such a tilted

relationship only if American national interests coincided closely with

India’s preferences across most of the important bilateral, regional, and

global issues now facing policy makers. Careful analysis of U.S. and Indian

interests does not show such a close convergence. Th erefore, a sound

and sustainable U.S. policy toward India should more accurately refl ect

multiple American, Indian, and global interests.

Th e United States should continue to emphatically support India’s

eff orts to prosper, secure itself, and gain international infl uence.

Democratic India’s success will be an achievement of unprecedented scale

and complexity, and it will benefi t not only Indians but the entire world.

Yet a U.S.–Indian partnership should not be conceptualized as a means to

contain or contest China—a notion that many self-proclaimed realists in

America and India wish to project onto the relationship. Th e United States

should appreciate India’s intrinsic importance more fully. To conceive of

India as a balance against China instrumentalizes it. India is nobody’s

tool, and as a large, developing country it shares many interests with

China. Sometimes India and China will stand together in opposition to

the United States, as with climate change and World Trade Organization

negotiations. More often than not, New Delhi will pursue a more

cooperative approach with Beijing than China-balancers in the United

States would wish. India knows it will always live next to China and does

not have the luxury to pursue ideologically and rhetorically heated policies

toward it.

Rather than maintaining the pretense of partnership, a truly pro-

India policy would acknowledge that India has diff erent near-term needs

and interests as a developing country than does the United States, even

as it recognizes that each will benefi t in the long run from the success of

the other. Most of what the U.S. government can do for India lies in the

broader global arena, and most of what India needs at home it must do

for itself. As Columbia University economist Arvind Panagariya writes,

“Commentators who deplore the US for failing to match its words with

action and exhort it to move beyond symbolism do not off er a concrete

set of actions they would like the latter to take. Demands for the removal

of certain export controls and access to or extradition of [the Pakistani-


10

American terrorist] David Headley, which fi nd frequent mentions, do not

make a coherent agenda…. Outside of the highly complex security area,

there is very little beyond the atmospherics that the governments can do to

promote partnerships.”4

Th e United States should be more willing than it has been to

accommodate India’s interests when doing so would not undermine

the evolution of a more cooperative global order. Th e most daunting

needs today are enhancing stable economic growth, producing and using

energy in new ways that limit dangerous climate disruption and weapons

proliferation, turning disaff ected states and populations away from

violent extremism, stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and

integrating rising regional powers such as India, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia,

and South Africa into global leadership. Military balancing, which is the

preoccupation of the so-called realists, is not unnecessary, but it is relatively

easy. It can be done through procurement, operational cooperation, and

training. Th e greater challenge is building confi dence that big global

problems can be managed eff ectively. Th is requires sustained political and

diplomatic mobilization and cooperation among diverse states that are not

typically inclined to make trade-off s to achieve a greater good.

11

Defi ning Interests

I n the course of meetings between presidents Clinton, Bush, and

Obama and prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan

Singh, the United States and India have developed a framework

for their burgeoning relationship. Th is agenda is now structured in the

U.S.–India Strategic Dialogue. Th e present essay analyzes the two states’

interests in several of the most important areas of their engagement, taking

the liberty to conceptualize the issues a bit more broadly than they are in

the bureaucratic categories of the Strategic Dialogue:

Democracy and values

Economic development and poverty alleviation

Policies toward China and defense cooperation

Counterterrorism, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

Vital issues of global governance

Nuclear cooperation and nonproliferation

Trade

Climate change

UN Security Council

DemocracyAmerican policy makers ritualistically incant that India is the world’s

largest democracy and is therefore the natural partner of the greatest

democracy, the United States. Democracy clearly is one of India’s

outstanding features. Its maintenance by a population of 1.1 billion people


12

who speak hundreds of languages, practice six established religions, and

live on per capita GDP of $1,122 marks one of humankind’s greatest

achievements.5 India is simply an amazing place and polity.

Yet, while India’s democratic character is intrinsically of tremendous

value, it serves little instrumental purpose for U.S. interests. Th e United

States traditionally proselytizes democracy around the world and would

very much welcome the credibility that Indian leaders could give it in

developing countries if they teamed up. But Indian leaders do not try

to convert others to democracy. Promoting democracy is too redolent

of the missionary colonialism that Indians still culturally resist, and it

is anathema to the state sovereignty that India still prioritizes. India’s

admirable long-term struggle to perfect its own democracy is the most

important contribution it can make to the larger cause of democracy

promotion around the world. Washington should not disappoint itself by

trying to enlist India in larger American projects to reform the world.

In fact, the best way for the United States and India to advance their

relationship and strengthen their shared infl uence on the world would be

to perfect their own unions, to paraphrase the U.S. Constitution. India’s

democratic structure provides the means for citizens to organize in parties

and NGOs to advance their interests and aspirations for justice. Th is

political liberty is inherently valuable and also instrumentally useful as

a pressure-relief valve. India’s legal system also has much to recommend

it. Nevertheless, India’s size, diversity, and backwardness continue to be

overwhelming. Governance and the administration of justice remain

spotty. Major examples of problems abound: the Naxalite insurgency

in one-third of Indian districts, a surging intifada in the Kashmir

Valley, communal violence such as in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, caste

discrimination and violence, and urban near-lawlessness such as one fi nds

in Mumbai. Th e marvel is that India has not discarded democracy to meet

these challenges.

Th e contradictions between India’s realities and its ideals mark the gap

between its current power and its potential. India must mobilize its own

citizenry to build social and physical infrastructure, provide widespread

access to health care and education, and secure its own territory before it

can ever hope to move others by example. Th ese are core governmental


13

functions, whatever the nature of the state. Th e virtue of being a democracy

does not compensate for the pain and lost opportunities of failing to

improve these functions. “China remains better organized and more

effi ciently governed than India,” Robert Kaplan writes, “despite China’s

lack of democracy.”6

When India most dramatically falls short in democratic justice—for

example, in protecting the human rights of Muslims in the Kashmir

Valley, or in responding to the Gujarat pogrom—it is not clear what

the United States should do. When such atrocities occur in adversary

countries, U.S. offi cials condemn them with varying degrees of intensity.

In friendly states such as India, quietude is common and understandable.

In the case of India, as distinct from, say, contemporary Iran, democracy

and a robust NGO community off er internal means to investigate, expose,

and punish wrongdoers. Th e Indian polity, like that of the United States,

would reject vocal public denunciations of their government by a foreign

state that is guilty of its own transgressions. But there should be room for

friendly American peers, be they

NGOs or offi cials, to applaud

the existence of democracy and

rule of law in India and to state

that its infl uence will wax and

wane to the degree that India

addresses politically related

injustice. India should know

that the United States would

say “yes” to requests for expertise

and for technical and fi nancial

resources to help India improve

its administration of justice and

internal security.

Less controversial would be American encouragement of India to

make its unique forms of “soft power” more available to others. As Itty

Abraham has emphasized, India possesses a unique ability to run railways,

manage huge crowds, provide short-term humanitarian relief, and conduct

safe and fair elections. Such governance skills are much needed around

Washington should not disappoint itself by trying to enlist India in larger American projects to reform the world.


14

the world. Indians have created thousands of eff ective nongovernmental

organizations that can be a model for other developing countries seeking

to address the core problems of human well-being. India could be

encouraged to create an analogue to the U.S. Peace Corps to facilitate

India’s talented youth to transfer their skills in alternative technologies,

literacy, and mass communications to less advanced states.

As the predominant military power in the world, the United States

perhaps naturally encourages Indian accretion of military muscle (and

U.S. defense imports). Th e Indian national security establishment, long

dismissed as presiding over a “soft” state, welcomes growing respect as a

“hard” power. But it would be an ironic form of mental colonialism for India

and the United States to collude in undervaluing India’s unique, indigenous

attributes. As Abraham writes, “Th e tremendous impact of soft power in

shaping how we all live, especially as the world becomes more globalised,

carries the message and promise of India in ways that a traditional foreign

policy built around force and fi nance can only dream of doing.”7

In sum, India and the United States share the virtue of being

democracies, but this may be more its own reward than a source of abiding

friendship or useful cooperation. India and the United States are both too

imperfect to get away with telling themselves or even other states how

to govern. Th e more that leaders and pundits focus on living up to their

own country’s principles and leading by example, the more powerful each

country will become and the stronger the bonds between them will be.

Development and Poverty Reduction India’s greatest national challenge is to “to turn the historic economic gains

of the last twenty years into inclusive growth that lifts millions more out of

poverty, that revitalizes rural India, and that creates a future of possibility

for more and more Indians.”8 Th ese eloquent words were spoken by U.S.

Under Secretary of State William Burns, but they eff ectively paraphrase

the repeated statements of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Success in political-economic development will determine whether India

is strong or weak, secure or vulnerable, an infl uencer of global trends or

infl uenced by them.

15

In a recent meeting a high-level White House offi cial

suggested that India could help isolate Iran’s government

by publicly demanding that it stop repressing its democracy

movement. An immensely successful Indian businessman

gently countered that this approach would backfi re in

two ways. Th e Indian runs a global business and is not

imbued with the non-aligned sensitivities of yesteryear;

he averred that India’s political class would bristle at

being told what to do, and Iran’s leaders would defi antly

rebuff public demands. Th is exchange was a remarkable

indicator of how poorly American offi cials understand

India, notwithstanding all the talk of partnership. Beyond

India’s historical and ideological aversion to meddling in

others’ aff airs, India’s own imperfections—such as human

rights abuses in Kashmir and the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat

—make it vulnerable to political counterattack if it were

to self-righteously hector others, especially in the Muslim

world.

Similarly, American offi cials recently have urged India

to press Myanmar’s junta to respect the human rights of

Aung San Suu Kyi’s Gandhian-style movement. But New

Delhi has remained quiet to curry favor with the junta,

refusing to condemn Suu Kyi’s latest trial and conviction

or join U.S. sanctions on Myanmar.

Regardless of whether the U.S. or Indian approach is

wiser, the point here is that they diff er despite their shared

attachments to democracy.

Democracy:Practicing Not Preaching


16

China is relevant here. Since the 1980s, it has successfully pursued a

strategy of societal mobilization in pursuit of economic growth without

diverting national energy and resources to military confl ict. Its economy

has grown to more than twice the size of India’s.9 Its population is

signifi cantly healthier and more educated than India’s.10 No friendly

outside power purposefully helped China to rise. Th e Chinese government

designed and implemented policies that mobilized the great talent, energy,

and savings of the Chinese people. Chinese leaders eschewed external

confl ict, and they limited military spending by, for example, retaining

a much smaller nuclear arsenal than either the United States or Russia

would have in an equivalent position. China benefi ted from the openness

of other states to trade, particularly the United States. It welcomed foreign

direct investment while protecting against the volatility of unregulated

fi nancial and currency markets.

Th ere is no reason to think that India’s rise will occur diff erently, or

that intentional policies by the United States would provide a major lift.

India’s domestic politics and policies will enable or retard its economic

progress. India needs all kinds of infrastructure; American actors will

eagerly provide the technology and know-how that will help build it if

India adopts the policies that invite this participation. Th ere is not much

for the U.S. government to do here. As the New York Times recently

reported, India’s quest to build roads, bridges, and electricity stations

and grids to sustain its modernization is impeded by a severe shortage of

competent civil engineers. Building such infrastructure has been one of

China’s signal accomplishments. According to Robert Kaplan, “China adds

more miles of highway per year than India has in total.”11 It is reasonable

to imagine India could learn from China in this domain.12

Various aspects of India’s democratic political system may

comparatively complicate and slow its progress. It will be up to Indian

leaders to determine whether and how the United States and other

outside actors—governmental and private—can speed their progress.

If India creates favorable conditions for American participation in its

development projects, “the bulk of the long-term relationship will be built

on business-to-business and individual-to-individual contacts outside of

the government sector,” in Arvind Panagariya’s words.13


17

Trade will aff ect India’s economic development, though not as

decisively as internal reforms and mobilization. Global trade rules will

be relevant, and they will be discussed in a later section of this report. In

terms of bilateral trade, China has recently rocketed past the United States

as India’s largest partner, according to the IMF. U.S.–India defense sales

and cooperation, if they materialize at signifi cant levels, could shift the

fi gures. However, there is little reason to think that Sino–India trade will

stop growing. Th is is another factor that will complicate India’s overall

policy making toward China, and it should also cast doubt on American

projections of India as a close partner in containing its economically

dynamic neighbor.

Policies Toward China and Defense CooperationChina is at the crux of much of the American and Indian criticism of

Obama’s policies toward India. Th e critics focus on competition between

China and India and between China and the United States. Th ey assume

that these arenas of competition should draw India and the United States

closer together than they have been during Obama’s term. Yet China

and India, despite their rivalry, have more convergent interests than these

critics realize. Furthermore, the United States may have more eff ective

ways to motivate China to cooperate in peacefully ordering international

aff airs than by overtly championing India to contest China, with an

emphasis on military power. Th is web of interests and possibilities must be

disentangled in order to devise policies that will yield positive results for

India, the United States, and the broader international system.

As the preceding discussion of democracy and economic development

indicates, India is striving to overcome many obstacles to build a social

democratic state. In the development sphere—especially infrastructure

and agricultural modernization—India is dealing with circumstances

that China has managed rather well. Th e U.S. experience and model are

less applicable. It follows that China and India share some positions in

negotiations on new rules to manage global trade and climate change,


18

for example, that diverge from U.S. preferences. Entangling India in

U.S. competition (and potential confl ict) with China or other states

would impede India’s development. Many Indian political leaders sense

this, which is why India will not be the sort of partner that the critics of

Obama’s policy fantasize about.

At the same time, there is a moral-ideological contest between India

and China, which India naturally wins in the eyes of Americans and

Indians. Extolling India’s democracy is a polite way of accentuating China’s

non-democracy. As the Indian strategist Brahma Chellaney has stated, the

Bush agenda was predicated on the idea of helping a rising India become a

democratic bulwark against authoritarian China. Chellaney and American

critics argue that “Obama sees things through a diff erent prism.”14

Yet ideology alone is too plastic to be the basis of U.S.–Indian

partnership to channel China’s power. India and China share interests as

developing countries, and the American and Indian polities experience

0

$10,000

$20,000

$30,000

$40,000

$50,000

$60,000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Mill

ions

of U

SD

Year

Total Trade Volume (India−U.S.) Total Trade Volume (India−China)

Table 1 U.S.–India and Sino–India Trade Since 2000

Source: International Monetary Fund


19

friction in values, preferences, and style, despite their both being

democracies. Th e bigger strategic questions are whether China will

ineluctably challenge the post-World War II international system of

economics and security developed largely by the United States and, if so,

whether the best way to prevent or mitigate China’s exertions is to counter

them with military power. If military balancing is the foremost strategic

imperative, then the next question is whether India is willing and able to

be an eff ective U.S. partner in pursuit of this end.

Obama’s hawkish critics believe that the answer is “yes” to both these

questions. As the eminent Indian writer C. Raja Mohan has put it, “Th ere

is little to suggest that President Obama and his top advisers share the two

basic convictions of the Bush Administration: that a militarily powerful

India serves long-term U.S. interests, and that the two nations can work

together to stabilize the Indian Ocean littoral and insure against future

attempts at domination by China.”15 Other policy shapers such as Ashley

Tellis put more velvet around the iron fi st, but the basic thrust is martial:

“To the degree that the American partnership with India aids New Delhi

in growing more rapidly, it contributes … towards creating those objective

structural constraints that discourage China from abusing its own growing

capabilities.”16

Th e specter here is of China as a rising power that threatens to take

and hold disputed territories, to use economic muscle to control the

energy and mineral resources that it needs to fuel its increasing appetite

or squeeze weak neighbors for concessionary trade, and so on. It is an

image that melds the Japan and Germany of the 1930s with the Soviet

Union of the 1950s and 1960s. In a variation of “fi ghting the last war,”

rising China vaguely resembles the big threats the United States and the

Western world faced and defeated in the twentieth century. In this view,

China could be tempted to overreach like Germany and Japan did before

they were stopped by World War II. Th erefore, military power balancing,

especially in the naval and strategic domains, is the most important means

of managing China’s rise. India can and should be an eff ective and stalwart

American partner in such balancing, and vice versa. Th is view further holds

that confronting China with military power will not undermine its (or

anyone else’s) willingness to cooperate in redressing global issues, either

20

U.S. law requires any state receiving sensitive defense

technology to sign the Logistics Support Agreement, the

Communication Interoperability and Security Memoran-

dum Agreement, and the Basic Exchange and Coopera-

tion Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation. Th e former

enables the two militaries to provide logistics support,

refueling, and docking facilities for each other’s warships

and warplanes on a barter or equal-value exchange basis.

Th e latter two establish terms for the supply of equipment

such as avionics and electronics for systems such as the

Boeing P8I maritime reconnaissance plane, which India

has already purchased.

Indian leaders have not signed these agreements

despite recent visits by Defense Secretary Robert Gates

and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael

Mullen. Th is may be a bargaining strategy intended to get

the United States to agree to relax other export controls on

Indian entities and secure the provision of more U.S. high

technology to India. But Indian resistance to a Logistics

Support Agreement runs revealingly deeper. “India doesn’t

want to be seen as America’s direct military ally,” an Indian

offi cial told a reporter before Mullen’s arrival. India has in

the past allowed American ships to refuel in its ports, but

it has done so secretly in order to avoid a domestic political

backlash. Any arrangement that began to look like a U.S.

military presence in India or Indian partnership in U.S.

military power projection would roil Indian politics and

off end India’s autonomous identity.

Holding UpDefense Cooperation


21

because China would not cooperate anyway or because robust containment

would motivate it to be more cooperative.

Unsurprisingly, U.S. strategists who share this historical perspective

put defense cooperation at the top of the list of what a U.S.–Indian

partnership should entail. American arms exporters add lobbying money

and muscle to this cause. India will be spending billions more dollars on

defense imports in the coming decade than any other prospective buyer of

American equipment. India’s plans to spend $10 billion for 126 advanced

fi ghter aircraft is the world’s biggest defense tender today, and Boeing

and Lockheed Martin are among the bidders. But Indian politicians and

bureaucrats are suspicious of mercantile come-ons and are doubtful that

they can trust the United States to be an unfl inching long-term supplier,

given the vicissitudes of politics in Washington. Th us, U.S. defense

manufacturers, consultants, and political representatives today avidly press

U.S. offi cials to do whatever is necessary to court Indian trust. “Obviously,

the commercial benefi t of defense sales to the U.S. economy can’t be

denied, but from a [Defense Department] perspective, these sales are even

more important in building a strategic partnership that will allow both

our countries to cooperate more eff ectively to protect our mutual security

interests in the future,” said Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy

said in a recent speech.17

But even if India buys the sorts of naval and air platforms that U.S.

(and French and Russian) defense contractors want to sell it—which

is far from inevitable—there is little reason to believe that Chinese

leaders would have an interest in fi ghting a conventional war with India.

Notwithstanding growing popular nationalism and assertiveness, Chinese

leaders in word and deed have recognized the power China has gained

by building economic strength and avoiding confl ict. In external aff airs

China has competed carefully and asymmetrically, not recklessly. On land,

as Robert Kaplan has noted, “China can fi ll power vacuums on its vast

frontiers through demographic and corporate means, without needing the

backup of an expeditionary ground force.”18 At sea, China seeks leverage

to press its disputed territorial claims. But it also is driven by fears of U.S.

power-projection capabilities, alone or with other states such as India,

which could jeopardize the lines of communication on which its economy

depends for energy and mineral resources.


22

Th e United States should make clear its commitment to support

India’s territorial integrity under the UN Charter. It should cooperate

with India and other Asian states to retain defense capabilities suffi cient

to blunt Chinese military power projection against them, especially in the

South and East China seas, where sovereignty over some islands has not

been resolved. Yet the United States and India would be playing to China’s

advantage if they emphasized

military competition. Th e great

military preponderance of

the United States over China

in the past three decades has

not prevented China from

gaining power in Asia through

economics and hardheaded

diplomacy. Th ere is no reason

to think that more emphasis on

military competition with China

will diminish China’s infl uence

in any circumstance short of

war. What is most needed is

the reinvigoration of economic

growth, improved democratic

governance, and enhancement of soft power of the states that wish to

balance China.

Nor is military competition with China the highest priority for

organizing Indian national security policy. India faces a violent “Maoist”

insurgency in nearly one-third of its 626 districts. Th e insurgents have

killed more than 800 people this year, many of them police offi cers,

and they have impeded development projects in several northeastern

Indian states, degrading public confi dence in Indian government.

Terrorism—internally motivated or instigated from Pakistan—remains a

pervasive challenge for security and intelligence services. Th e government

understandably does not publicly discuss the number of internal threats,

but based on intelligence from plans it has disrupted, the security

challenge is alarming. Actors other than the army, navy, and air force are

There is no reason to think that more emphasis on military competition with China will diminish China’s infl uence in any circumstance short of war.


23

charged with redressing these most immediate security threats; the services

naturally focus on deterring or defeating threats from China and Pakistan.

Still, as with so much else, the United States would misunderstand what

India wants and needs if it values India primarily as a partner in balancing

China.

India must have an advanced navy, but beyond its understandable,

albeit amorphous, ambition to “project power,” the Indian navy’s primary

purposes are to protect commercial shipping from piracy, deter Pakistan by

threatening to blockade its ports in a war, perform disaster-relief missions,

cooperate with other powers in keeping shipping lanes open, and enhance

the survivability of India’s nuclear deterrent. As Robert Kaplan, hardly a

proponent of China, writes, “China is merely seeking to protect its own sea

lines of communications with friendly, state-of-the-art harbors along the

way.”19 China fears that the United States could disrupt Chinese sea lines

of communications in a confl ict, whether over Taiwan, the South China

Sea, or elsewhere. New Delhi and Washington would be better off if they

conceived of India’s growing naval capabilities as being intended to protect

India’s territorial integrity, the well-being of littoral states in the wake of

disasters, and the freedom of the seas around India. If China develops

capabilities to act off ensively in the waters around India, the United States

and India could readily choose to bolster their combined capacity to use

naval and air power to deter it.

Th e Indian polity is highly unlikely to fulfi ll the American wish that

India would join it in naval combat against China on behalf of its relations

with the United States, ASEAN member-states, or Taiwan. Indeed, the

China-balancing champions of U.S.–India defense cooperation have not

explained how, where, or when such partnership in combat would occur.

Th e plausibility of China’s initiating confl ict with India is low. Th erefore

the most salient military scenarios in which the United States would value

partnership with India would be in a confl ict in which the United States is

defending a smaller country’s interests over disputed islands in the South

China Sea or over Taiwan.20 India could welcome U.S. military assistance

in a Sino–Indian war (however unlikely such a war might be), but would

it believe that the United States would run the risks of such confl ict, and

possible escalation to nuclear use, on India’s behalf ? Th e United States


24

could welcome India’s naval or air force cooperation to interdict Chinese

lines of communication during a Sino–Indian war, but would it believe

that the Indian polity would support participation in a confl ict over islands

in the South or East China seas or Taipei? Bear in mind that India’s

democracy contains strong strains of anti-American ideology as well as

pro-Chinese and non-aligned elements.

Recent experience is relevant here. Th e Bush administration almost

persuaded the conservative BJP-led government to join it in the Iraq War.

Indians may have learned more from the past seven years than did their

self-advertised special friends in Washington.

Asia lacks multilateral security structures that incorporate the local

states and those who project power around them, particularly the United

States. From Afghanistan through the subcontinent, Central Asia,

Southeast Asia, to Northeast Asia, security is under-structured. Th e

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is developing, but it is doing

so to contest and exclude the United States as much as it is to order the

relations of all relevant powers. ASEAN and the Asian Regional Forum

are more advanced, but they are underdeveloped and overshadowed by

questions about the intentions and capabilities of the United States and

China and the future character of their relationship. Th e South Asian

Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) exists, but it is trivialized

by the unresolved Indo–Pak relationship and the absence of infl uential

outside actors, particularly the United States and China. Northeast Asia

encompasses major global players—China, Japan, the Koreas, Russia, and

the United States—but, with the exception of the ad hoc Six-Party process

to deal with North Korea, the region lacks mechanisms for multilaterally

addressing and structuring security issues. China and the United States are

highly relevant to each of these groupings, and India will be increasingly

so, perhaps with the exception of Northeast Asia.

Competitive expansion of military capabilities may be necessary

to prevent destabilizing imbalances in each subregion, but the states

that aff ect more than one subregion must take care that the military

capabilities they build up for one contest do not exacerbate insecurities

in other places. For example, the United States and China are enhancing

their overall military capabilities and also undertaking defense and nuclear


25

cooperation with India and Pakistan. Th e combination of these broad and

regionally specifi c actions by the United States and China complicates

the security dilemmas of India and Pakistan. An unmanaged, four-by-

four competition has emerged. Similar potential exists in Southeast Asia

and Northeast Asia. To the extent that India’s power projection expands

west and east and is seen as being paired with the United States against

China, stability may be ever harder to achieve. Growing competition and

instability may not be avoidable, and responsibility for potential trends

must be widely shared, but the onus is on the most infl uential actors to

avoid the default outcome of increased insecurity, disorder, and diversion

of resources to unproductive military competition. Th e United States and

China are the most important. Where India is relevant, Washington’s and

Beijing’s strategies will be more productive if they center on a positive

agenda of cooperation. “Wariness” will be the watchword, but the United

States and China should not give up pursuing cooperation. It is not yet

time to fall back to twentieth-century policies.

Th is appears to be the Obama administration’s strategy. Critics of the

administration’s approach to India don’t like it. Daniel Twining argues that

the Obama administration favors China in “the belief that cooperation

between Washington and Beijing is essential to delivering solutions to the

big global challenges.”21 Mohan disparages “democratic administrations

of recent times” that “have tended to defi ne engagement with India in

terms of global issues and multilateralism rather than converging bilateral

interests.”22 Defense cooperation to balance China should be at the top of

the bilateral list in Mohan’s view. But this overstates the convergence of

multiple American and Indian interests and understates the opportunity

cost of failing to pursue a more cooperative framework for American–

Sino–Indian relations.

Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy argues for a more

promising approach: “A safer, more secure India that is closer to the

United States should not be seen as a threat to China, and vice versa.

Indeed, all three countries play an important role in regional stability.

Th e United States recognizes and welcomes the growing cooperation

between India and China on security aff airs in recent years. And both

India and the United States seek a closer relationship with China, while


26

encouraging Beijing to be more transparent about its military capabilities

and intentions.”23

Before dismissing the eff ectiveness of this approach, the United States

and India should put the onus on China to disprove it. China’s military

capabilities and nationalistic assertiveness are rising, and its neighbors,

including India, do increasingly ask, in the words of the Indian defense

expert Uday Bhaskar, “if the inexorable ‘rise’ of China is conducive to

equitable peace and stability in Asia.”24 Bhaskar invites Chinese voices to

objectively address “the unease from East Asia to South Asia about the

mismatch between Beijing’s self-image and its actions.” Rather than talk

and act about China’s impact on South Asian security without engaging

directly with it, the United States and India should invite the Chinese to

explore the potential of confi dence-building and, some day, arms control

to ameliorate Asian security dilemmas. Such eff orts could begin informally

with a mix of nongovernmental experts and former and current offi cials

from the three countries if offi cial wariness in New Delhi and Beijing is

too great.

Counterterrorism, Pakistan, and AfghanistanSouth Asia—particularly Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India—is bedeviled

by groups who act violently not only against the United States but,

more often, against residents of South Asia. Pakistan is the epicenter of

extremist violence. Th e strategic challenge for the United States, India, and

Afghanistan is to motivate Pakistani authorities to act decisively against

violent extremists. Pakistan must be persuaded and helped to end the

distinction between “good” jihadis who fi ght India (and the United States

and India in Afghanistan) and “bad” jihadis who have turned against the

Pakistani society and state.

Pakistan’s relationship with violent extremists links the terrorism

problem to the broader challenge of stabilizing and demilitarizing Indo–

Pak relations and of preventing nuclear war in the subcontinent. Th e 2001

and 2008 attacks on the Indian Lok Sabha and Mumbai demonstrated


27

that the most likely trigger of war between India and Pakistan will be a

subconventional attack on India by actors that the Indian government will

associate with the Pakistani state. Indian military and national security

leaders have said that “next time” they will not hold back military reprisals

against Pakistan. Accordingly, they are developing a “Cold Start” military

doctrine and the (prospective) ability to mount rapid military incursions

into Pakistan to punish it, take

limited amounts of territory,

and then negotiate to compel

Pakistan once and for all to

eradicate the sources of violence

against India. It is assumed

that the United States would

intervene diplomatically to

contain hostilities as it has

before, but this time India would

enjoy a favorable situation on

the ground and a good overall

balance of power, which it would

use to leverage negotiations to its benefi t.

Pakistani military leaders counter that if India begins military

hostilities with “Cold Start,” Pakistan will respond with “Hot End,” the

use of nuclear weapons. Th e connections between violent extremism

(subconventional war), conventional war, and nuclear war are apparent

through such a scenario. Pakistanis implicate the United States in this

continuum of confl ict by arguing that it has helped India to increase its

nuclear and advanced conventional armories, leaving Pakistan no choice

but to rely more extensively on nuclear deterrence, especially if it must

reject subconventional warfare. Here, the Pakistanis dangerously mistake

eff ects for causes.

Th e primary underlying threat is the growing number of violent

extremists in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis blame this danger on American

policies and India’s unwillingness to resolve the Kashmir confl ict. Th is knot

of issues is among the world’s most diffi cult to untie. Neither the Bush

administration nor critics of the Obama approach to India know how to

The Pakistani military and intelligence networks are too strong for India and the United States to ignore.


28

do it. Th e knot cannot be cut, nor does a strategy focused on partnering

with India to balance China’s rising power solve the Pakistan challenge.

Indeed, it can make it worse by intensifying China’s propensity to bolster

Pakistan’s ability to trouble India. Pakistani governance—particularly its

civilian institutions and personalities—is too weak to provide the security

and political-economic mobilization necessary to modernize the society.

But the Pakistani military and intelligence networks are too strong for

India and the United States to ignore.

Th erefore the United States and India share an interest in devising

a mixture of inducements and pressures to persuade the power centers

in Pakistan to cooperate in rooting out sources of violent extremism.

Th e United States can reasonably ask New Delhi to understand that

Washington will seek a lasting positive relationship with Pakistan.

Criticizing U.S. leaders for words and deeds that do not always and

exclusively favor India over Pakistan is neither realistic nor wise. Th e

United States and India would also augment the prospects for Indo–Pak

stability by avoiding military sales that Pakistan could reasonably fi nd

provocative. Encouraging Indo–Pak dialogue on how to stabilize their

competition in subconventional, conventional, and nuclear capabilities is

necessary.

Kashmir is a challenge that the United States can neither avoid nor

resolve. India has the power to rebuff unwelcome U.S. involvement.

Successive American administrations have recognized this. Washington

can do more than it typically has to hold the Pakistani military and the

ISI to pledges that they will not abet violent actors in Kashmir. At a

minimum, the United States should expose Pakistan publicly whenever it

fails to act to prevent infi ltrations across the Line of Control, shut down

jihadi training operations, or arrest leaders of organizations that foment

attacks on India. But Indian leaders must also do more to correct the

misgovernance and human rights abuses that are remobilizing Muslims

in the Kashmir Valley. Indians may reasonably expect the United States to

heed their demand not to try to mediate the Kashmir issue with Pakistan,

but they should not expect it to stay silent about large-scale Indian human

rights violations or other policies that undermine confl ict resolution there.

Th e United States has legitimate strategic interests in urging both India


29

and Pakistan to explore all prospects for normalizing Indo–Pak relations

and reducing the threat of violent extremism in South Asia and elsewhere.

Pakistani elites are adapting to the reality that Pakistan cannot

wrest the valley away from India, and that it must negotiate a formula

to recognize the territorial status quo and improve the quality of life of

Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control. Many Pakistanis recognize

further that Manmohan Singh is the leader best suited to fi nd and deliver

a package that Indians, Kashmiris, and Pakistanis could live with. But if

Pakistanis perceive that resolving the Kashmir issue will merely make the

environment safer for India to bolster its conventional military advantage

over Pakistan, they will balk. Th is is another reason that the United States

and India must take great care to manage their defense cooperation in

ways that reassure Pakistan that India’s aims and capabilities are defensive,

not off ensive. Conventional military dialogue and confi dence-building

measures deserve greater attention for this purpose.

One reason why Pakistanis are turning their attention away from

Kashmir is that many see Afghanistan as the hotter front for Indo–Pak

competition. Pakistanis, especially the military, perceive an Indian eff ort to

extend infl uence throughout Afghanistan at Pakistan’s expense. Pakistan

has fought this infl uence in many ways, including attacks on the Indian

embassy and other targets in Afghanistan. India argues justly that it is

for the Afghan state and people to decide whether to welcome Indian

involvement in their state (many Afghans plainly do). It is unrealistic and

ahistorical to expect that India will not be a presence in Afghanistan if

Afghans welcome it.

Th e United States is caught in the middle. Pakistan demands that

Washington use its infl uence on its “new best friend” India not to use

Afghanistan as the western side of a vise to squeeze Pakistan. India

demands that the United States fi ght the Pakistani-backed Taliban more

robustly and eschew temptations to negotiate with the Taliban. India is

particularly emphatic about Pakistan’s not being granted a seat in any

possible negotiations. Pakistan is willing to fi ght until the last Taliban or

coalition foot soldier falls in order to pursue its interests in Afghanistan,

while India is willing to fi ght to the last American to keep Pakistan

from exerting indirect control over a future Afghan government. Neither


30

position serves American interests. Th e United States cannot avoid

disappointing either Pakistan or India, or both. Afghanistan therefore

demonstrates the limits of U.S. partnership with India and Pakistan.

Understanding these limits does not give us an answer to the question of

what the United States should do in Afghanistan if the current strategy

proves unsuccessful. However, it does clarify that neither Pakistan nor

India is going to signifi cantly help the United States out of the quagmire,

and that American policy makers will have to repair relations with both

India and Pakistan in the aftermath of any unhappy Afghan denouement.

Ultimately, the Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid is correct to say

that in South Asia “no real change is possible without a change taking

place in the [Pakistani] army’s obsessive mind-set regarding India, its

determination to defi ne and control national security, and its pursuit of

an aggressive forward policy in the region rather than fi rst fi xing things at

home.”25 As part of this change of mind-set, Rashid adds, it is “necessary

for the army to agree to a civilian-led peace process with India. Civilians

must have a greater say in what constitutes national security. Until that

happens, the army’s focus on the threat from New Delhi prevents it from

truly acknowledging the problems it faces from extremism at home.” Th e

necessity and expediency of working with the army to supply the war

eff ort in Afghanistan and conduct counter–al-Qaeda operations tempt

the United States to reinforce the army’s dominance (as in the anti-Soviet

campaign), but the bigger, long-term imperative is for structural reform in

Pakistan along the lines Rashid argues.

31

James Dobbins, a RAND Corporation analyst with extensive U.S. govern-

ment experience regarding Afghanistan, has sketched a possible arrange-

ment that would do more to meet Afghan, American, Indian, and Pakistani

interests than the most likely alternatives. Creating such an arrangement

would require cooperation among these four states and a power-sharing

arrangement between the Taliban and other leading centers of Afghan

power.

Afghanistan commits to preventing its territory from being used to destabilize any of its neighbors;

Afghanistan’s neighbors and the other powers promise not to allow their territory to be used to interfere in Afghanistan;

Th e eff ect of the above pledges would be to declare Afghanistan permanently neutral and commit all others to respect that neutrality;

Afghanistan recognizes its border with Pakistan (the Durand Line);

Th e United States and NATO promise to withdraw their forces once these other provisions have been given real eff ect;

Th e donor community promises to support the delivery of public services—roads, schools, health clinics, electricity, and security—to the disadvantaged communities on both sides of the Af–Pak border.

Dobbins acknowledges that an international accord on Afghanistan

along these lines would be impossible without a successful internal

process of reconciliation and power-sharing within Afghanistan, and

vice versa. “Any settlement among the major Afghan adversaries would

crumble quickly unless supported by all the other players in the Great

Game,” he says.26

A Least-Bad Outcome in Afghanistan

33

Issues of Global Governance

T he United States has an abiding interest in strengthening rule-based

arrangements to manage global challenges. India’s size and growing

impact on the global economy, environment, and security system

mean that both countries will struggle to reconcile their national and

bilateral interests with imperatives to make the overall international system

function eff ectively.

Nuclear Cooperation and NonproliferationStrategies toward China, India, and Pakistan intersect in the fi eld of

nuclear nonproliferation, which also bears on economic development

and climate change. Th e single most important policy change in this

area was the Bush administration’s initiative to exempt India from global

nonproliferation rules that had prevented the United States and other

states from doing nuclear commerce with it. Indian offi cials have for

decades insisted that Washington must lift nuclear cooperation restrictions

if it wishes to transform relations with India. Th e Bush administration

acceded to this demand in 2005 and subsequently lobbied the U.S.

Congress, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the International

Atomic Energy Agency to follow suit. As a result, Russia, France, and

other countries are now doing nuclear business with India. American fi rms

had been kept on the sidelines awaiting the balky Indian Parliament’s

passage of legislation limiting liability for nuclear accidents, without which

U.S. companies cannot risk building nuclear power plants in India. A bill


34

was fi nally pushed through Parliament on August 30 to create a more

propitious climate for President Obama’s visit, but its terms fall short of

the benchmark international liability conventions. American companies,

unlike those whose home governments will insure them, are still unable to

risk building in India.

Th e nuclear deal provided benefi ts to India and potentially to foreign

exporters of nuclear power plants, but on balance it has harmed the

nuclear nonproliferation regime and the United States’ credibility as its

leader. Th e nuclear deal exemplifi es the liabilities of a strategy to privilege

India in policy domains that lie at the core of global governance. Th e

latter are too important to sacrifi ce for the purpose of satisfying India

when its positions are at variance with the legitimate interests of the

broader international system.

Advocates of the deal—from President Bush to congressional

Republicans and Democrats—claimed it would strengthen

nonproliferation. India would have to designate each of its nuclear

power plants and other facilities as either military or civilian and put

civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards. However, India designated

only 14 of 22 power plants as civilian and put its plutonium Fast Breeder

Reactor program in the military category. India thereby added vastly to

the potential stock of plutonium that it could separate from spent fuel

and use for weapons, even if it is unlikely to do so. India’s electricity-

producing plants and breeder program had previously been perceived as

civilian. India also promised to adopt tight nonproliferation controls on

nuclear exports. Yet the legally binding UN Security Council Resolution

1540 already obligated India and all other states to implement strong

export controls.

Th e nuclear deal did not obligate India to sign the Comprehensive

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty or put a moratorium on further production of

fi ssile materials for weapons. Th ese are two key measures of commitment

to the global nuclear nonproliferation and arms control agenda favored

by the vast majority of states. Th is position stemmed from the Bush

administration’s “antipathy to nuclear arms control,” in Ashley Tellis’s

words, and its desire, shared by New Delhi, to see India expand its capacity

to balance China’s nuclear weapon capabilities.27


35

Whether or not Washington’s and New Delhi’s strategy for growing

India’s civilian and military nuclear power is wise, many other states saw

the deal as an aff ront. Th e United States previously had twisted arms

and invoked moral and security imperatives to convince other states to

adopt tighter controls on nuclear exports. Now it was using its muscle

in what many saw as a self-interested, geopolitical, and mercantile move

to enrich its vendors and empower its new friend against China. States

that had agreed to foreswear nuclear weapons and join the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty with the understanding that they would in return

receive the benefi t of nuclear cooperation that non–NPT states would not

receive now felt that India was being favored for acquiring and testing

nuclear weapons. Th e value of being a good nonproliferation citizen was

diminished. Many NPT-member states expressed their disappointment

privately, if not publicly.

Devaluation of America’s currency as leader of the rule-based

nonproliferation system has had unwelcome consequences. Brazil had

been on the verge of agreeing to accept stronger IAEA safeguards on

its nuclear program under the so-called Additional Protocol, but it later

refused, expressing its anger that the United States was rewarding a state

that had acquired nuclear weapons. Other developing countries and China

became more reluctant to join the United States in sanctioning Iran for

its noncompliance with nonproliferation rules, citing the India deal as

evidence of a double standard.

Th e U.S. move to privilege India’s nuclear program and balance

China deepened Pakistan’s determination to resist negotiations to ban

further production of fi ssile materials for military purposes. China,

which could have used the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s (NSG) consensus

decision-making process to block the India deal, is now less susceptible to

international pressure to refrain from similar cooperation with Pakistan.

Th e United States and others in the NSG think nuclear cooperation with

Pakistan is premature given Pakistan’s past proliferation activities, its fi scal

and security crises, and the corruption and ineffi ciency of its energy pricing

and regulation practices. Th e NSG is a voluntary arrangement, so China

could choose to cooperate with Pakistan without NSG approval. From an

international security perspective, it would be better if China sought NSG


36

permission, much as India did. But if Beijing knew that the United States

and others would block it despite China’s reluctant acceptance of the U.S.–

India deal, it would have little incentive to uphold the NSG’s standing.

A better alternative would be to work with China, Pakistan, and other

NSG members to identify criteria that Pakistan could meet over time to

warrant approval of nuclear cooperation with it. Such an approach would

ameliorate some of the damage done by the original deal with India.

Especially damaging is the permission that Washington granted to

India to reprocess spent-fuel derived from fuel and reactors supplied by

the United States and other foreign partners of India. Th e United States,

including even the Bush administration, has long led international eff orts

to prevent additional states from enriching uranium and separating

plutonium. By exempting India from this policy, the United States has

emboldened non–nuclear-weapon states such as Egypt, Jordan, Turkey,

South Korea, and Vietnam to resist rules that would restrict their options

to engage in enrichment and reprocessing. Th ese capabilities are not

necessary at the national level to fuel nuclear power plants, but they

are vital to producing nuclear weapons. Turkey, motivated in part by its

sense that the United States, France, and Russia have double standards

in enforcing rules on nuclear trade and nonproliferation, is holding up

eff orts by the NSG to establish criteria for limiting trade in enrichment

and reprocessing capabilities. South Korea is lobbying hard to persuade

Washington to renegotiate its nuclear cooperation agreement to allow it

to develop reprocessing and enrichment techniques. Seoul argues that its

stalwart alliance with the United States makes it at least as worthy as India

to receive this approval.

Th ese and other negative repercussions of the India deal outweigh

its benefi ts. India may increase beyond 3 percent the share of power

that nuclear plants provide to its economy, but the costs, time lags, and

controversies involved in doing so will keep nuclear power from being

a panacea to India’s development or carbon emission-reduction needs.

Indeed, protests by citizens living near proposed nuclear power plant sites

refl ect the tension between India’s democratic processes and its nuclear

ambitions. Th e record of India’s nuclear establishment validates the former

Indian defense offi cial P. R. Chari’s caution that “it would require a huge


37

leap of imagination to accept wild claims that nuclear energy provides the

answer to meet India’s future energy needs.”28 Th e Indian nuclear power

program places great hope in building and reliably operating plutonium

breeder reactors (currently kept outside of international safeguards under

the nuclear deal), despite the fact that France, Japan, Germany, the United

Kingdom, and the United States have all set aside this technology. As

Chari writes, “A willing suspension of disbelief is also required to believe

that breeder technology is the silver bullet that will ease India’s energy

security problems.”29

Th e involvement of foreign nuclear technology providers may help

raise the competence and effi ciency of India’s indigenous nuclear sector,

and it may help win much-

needed authority for India’s

Atomic Energy Regulatory

Board, which is charged with

ensuring the safety of India’s

civilian nuclear complex but

has always been under the

thumb of the Department of

Atomic Energy’s leadership.

Yet these marginal gains are

small compared with the loss

of confi dence in the global

nonproliferation regime and

America’s leadership of it.

Moreover, if U.S. cheerleading for the Indian nuclear program obscures

the need to strengthen truly independent oversight of safety in the Indian

nuclear establishment, a future accident would harm not only India and

America’s reputation; it would also imperil the global nuclear industry’s

prospects for growth.

Ironically, there is evidence that the nuclear deal will not accomplish its

primary objective of transforming U.S.–Indian relations. Nuclear energy

simply is not important enough to the Indian economy or polity (outside

of globalized urban elites) to transform India’s political willingness to

accommodate American interests where they do not already converge with

Ironically, there is evidence that the nuclear deal will not accomplish its primary objective of transforming U.S.–Indian relations.


38

its own. Th e Indian Parliament almost rejected the deal itself, despite the

fact that it was a “gift horse,” in the words of one of the deal’s architects,

Philip Zelikow. Indian political parties, civil society, and national security

hawks expressed suspicions of undue American infl uence in New Delhi.

Th is wariness can perhaps only be attenuated by further U.S. concessions

to India in other domains. Th us, Mohan now argues that “progress on

the bilateral defense/security agenda is the key to Delhi’s willingness to

cooperate with Washington across the board.”30

Meanwhile, in Washington the deal raised expectations that India

now would move to accommodate U.S. interests, for example, in

sanctioning Iran for its illicit nuclear activities. But India has refused to

cooperate with recently passed congressional sanctions to block exports

of refi ned petroleum products to Iran and investment in Iran’s energy

sector. In eff ect India is daring the United States to apply extraterritorial

sanctions on its companies. Whether or not the congressionally driven

extraterritorial sanctions are wise or eff ective, pressuring Iran to comply

with IAEA and UN Security Council demands is one of America’s

highest international security priorities. Th e much-vaunted nuclear deal

did not win India’s cooperation on this issue, but instead emboldened

Iran and made other states less inclined to support the United States

in isolating Iran. Th e deal provides an object lesson in the pitfalls of

distorting the rule-based elements of the international system to privilege

a friend.

International TradeInternational trade can contribute to India’s growth and development,

albeit modestly compared with domestic-driven growth. U.S. policies can

help create rules of global trade that could benefi t India. Yet in World

Trade Organization negotiations the U.S. and Indian positions have

clashed in the two areas most important to India: agriculture and services.

American friends who want to help India achieve the economic

growth and development necessary to become a great power should

accommodate India’s interests in agricultural trade. Roughly two-thirds

of India’s population earns its livelihood from agriculture, often of the


39

subsistence type. India does not yet have a market for low-skilled wage

labor that could absorb large volumes of agriculturalists who could be

displaced as a result of trade rules that too indiscriminately ease imports

of foodstuff s. Accordingly, India, along with many other developing

countries, demands trade rules that would allow it to protect indigenous

farmers by erecting tariff s higher than allowed maximums under

prospective new rules in the event of a sudden and potentially price-

destabilizing infl ux of imports.31 A U.S. administration could accede to

these demands without undermining the global trade regime, though it

would cause backlash in the form of political pressure and lost campaign

contributions from an agribusiness sector that employs hundreds of

millions fewer people than Indian agriculture.

Similarly, Indian negotiators in service sector talks bridle at U.S.

resistance to new rules that would grant employees of Indian fi rms

more permission to travel to the United States and other countries to

perform contracted services. Th is is especially important in the fi elds of

information technology, law, accounting, and research and development.

India has its own inconsistencies: For example, it blocks foreign lawyers

from practicing on Indian territory.32 In general terms, India understands

the interests of the United States and other advanced countries in

protecting their labor markets, but labor-abundant countries like India

fi nd it inequitable that the WTO privileges freer trade in goods to the

advantage of rich countries, while resisting liberalization of trade in labor.

EnvironmentClimate change is perhaps the most globally important environmental

threat to economic development and security. To the extent that volatile,

extreme weather reduces agricultural productivity and increases migration

pressures, India could be especially susceptible to its eff ects. Th e August

fl oods in Pakistan are an overwhelming example of the sorts of eff ects

climate change models predict.

Indian representatives correctly note that the rich countries led by

the United States are responsible for most of the carbon now in the

atmosphere. It follows, Indians say, that this rich minority should bear the


40

bulk of the burden of reducing rates of emissions and abating the eff ects.

Indian offi cials also point toward their low emissions per capita as another

reason they should be exempt from pressure. In 2007 India produced

only 1.38 tons of carbon dioxide per capita, compared with 18.91 tons

per capita from the United States.33 However, to the extent that India’s

economy will grow, its 1 billion-plus citizens will emit more and more

carbon into the atmosphere. Th us, India is simultaneously a potential

major “victim” of the eff ects of climate change caused largely by others and

a potential major exacerbator of the problem.

Th e United States is looking to reach a global agreement on binding

emissions targets where developing countries such as India are tied to

specifi c requirements on emissions with strong measurement, review,

and verifi cation (MRV) protocols to ensure compliance.34 India is

looking toward increasing energy effi ciency per unit of GDP and, at the

recent Copenhagen conference, it articulated a nonbinding ambition to

cut domestic emissions intensity 20 to 25 percent by 2020, excluding

agriculture.35 Although India has been open to some discussion of MRV, it

believes that developed countries must be subject to similar verifi cation of

their targets, and that equity between developed and developing powers is

key. India understandably cares deeply about ensuring that any movement

toward cutting emissions does not unduly harm its economic growth and

potential. Th e United States is more focused on wringing concessions from

developing countries both to pursue a policy of reducing carbon emissions

globally and to aid in the passage of domestic climate change legislation by

reducing the perceived competitive disadvantage that might result.

Critics of the Obama administration’s policy toward India do not engage

the particulars of the climate change issue. Rather, they argue it should

not be given the importance that Obama has given it, notwithstanding the

object lesson of the fl oods in nearby Pakistan. Mohan, for example, derides

“henpecking about global warming” as an example of Obama’s losing “sight

of the strategic possibilities that are at hand with India.” It would be better,

such critics argue, to focus on defense cooperation to balance China. Th is is

another example of the atavism of these critics’ trilateral balance-of-power

focus.


41

UN Security CouncilFor all of its shortcomings, the UN Security Council still occupies an

important place in global governance. India makes a strong claim for

permanent membership in the Council, even if no one knows practical

ways to expand the number of the Council’s permanent seats. Th is body

can hardly claim to represent international society in any dimension if

it does not include India. Imagining India in the Security Council can

illuminate and extend the foregoing analysis.

Th e most important

actions the Security Council

takes are to identify threats to

international peace and security,

authorize action to make or keep

peace, impose sanctions when

international norms and rules

are broken, and, more recently,

adopt resolutions requiring states

to implement laws to prevent

terrorism and proliferation. In

each of these areas, India has

expressed positions contrary to

those taken by the United States.

Along with other developing

countries, India objected to

Security Council Resolution 1540, which requires all states to adopt and

enforce national laws to prohibit the transfer of nuclear, biological, or

chemical weapons for terrorist purposes and to establish eff ective domestic

controls to prevent proliferation. India supported the objective but opposed

the Security Council’s mandating such action. India has quietly dissented

from U.S. and UN Security Council sanctions on Iran and has opposed

initiatives to condemn or sanction Sudan for its atrocities in Darfur. Th e

broadest indication of India’s divergence from U.S. positions in the United

Nations is its record in the UN General Assembly, where it has voted with

the United States approximately 20 percent of the time.36

India is not yet prepared to partner with the United States in strengthening many of the rule-based elements of the international system.


42

In the words of former Mexican foreign minister Jorge G. Castaneda,

India—like Brazil, China, and South Africa—is not just a weak supporter

“of the notion that a strong international regime should govern human

rights, democracy, nonproliferation, trade liberalization, the environment,

international criminal justice, and global health.” India opposes eff orts

to strengthen such an international system today “more or less explicitly,

and more or less actively.”37 India has its own historical motivations

and political-economic interests for taking the positions it does, and it

does not threaten the sovereignty or territorial integrity of others in the

international system. On some issues that enter the UN agenda relating to

human rights, India favors state sovereignty over solidarity with victims of

human rights violations in order to protect its position on Kashmir. India

also does not wish to alienate states such as Sudan, which are potential

suppliers of oil and natural gas. Th e crux of the issue here is that India is

not yet prepared to partner with the United States in strengthening many

of the rule-based elements of the international system—the project that

has been the objective of American leadership since the end of World War

II and, with renewed vigor, in the era of globalization. India continues

to stand apart. Th e United States should try to draw it into collaborative

global institution-building, as President Obama has, but with realistic

expectations and a recognition that when trade-off s must be made between

India’s expressed interests and those of the common good, it is not

unreasonable for the United States to favor the latter.

43

Conclusion

T he Bush administration, building on momentum imparted by

its predecessor and by successive Indian governments, sought to

“transform” the U.S.–India relationship. Both sides recognized that

an alliance was too much to imagine, but they were determined to build a

durable strategic partnership that would elevate their bilateral relationship

to the top tier of each country’s foreign policy priorities.

However, the rhetoric of “transformation” that attended the path-

breaking nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries

inspired unrealistic expectations. It implied a greater convergence of

interests and priorities than is realistic. Bush administration offi cials, in

their eagerness, hubris, and preoccupation with balancing Chinese power,

tilted in the nuclear deal and in their rhetoric farther to the Indian side

than U.S. interests could sustain. Th ey inspired India and built the trust

of its elites, but in the manner of someone off ering a deal too good to be

true. Indeed, the courtship of the relationship between the early Bush

administration and the Vajpayee government was too romanticized to be

sustained as a long-term relationship.

Inevitably, Bush’s and Vajpayee’s successors would have to settle into a

more prosaic relationship that would more realistically refl ect competing

priorities and interests. For Washington’s part, expectations, policies,

and rhetoric would need to be rebalanced to better refl ect America’s

multiple interests and those of the international system it attempts to

lead. In searching for a more realistic and sustainable balance, the Obama

administration has disappointed India and invited attack from partisans of

the Bush approach.

Yet India’s “‘nonaligned spirit’ . . . limits the degree to which it can

align itself with U.S. foreign policy interests,” according to Kanwal Sibal.

“On most strategic issues, Indian and U.S. positions remain apart.” New

Delhi and Washington share core interests on policies toward China and


44

Pakistan, but they will diff er on how to pursue them. In global negotiations

on trade and climate change, U.S. domestic political and economic

considerations impede it from accommodating India’s equitable demands,

while on the latter issue India’s short-term priorities threaten its own, and

the common, interest.

A realistic and balanced strategy would still cherish India. Th e United

States should still act to bolster India’s economic development wherever

possible, including by accommodating Indian positions on trade and

climate change that are compatible with other major developing countries.

Th e United States should bolster India’s capacity to prevent terrorism,

defend its borders, and secure international seaways, reaffi rming India’s

non-aggressive intentions and interest in peaceful relations with China

and Pakistan. If, in these domains, and more broadly in policies to

address twenty-fi rst century international challenges, the United States

can advance the eff ectiveness of global governance, it will create a better

environment for Indians to make themselves more prosperous and secure.

Autonomy is the imperative of Indian political culture and strategy;

leaders in Washington should recognize and respect this without distorting

India’s expectations or those of the American political class.

45

NotesThe author would like to acknowledge Peter Austin for his insightful critique and editing, and for his research assistance.

1 Daniel Twining, “Diplomatic Negligence: Th e Obama

Administration Fumbles Relations With India,” Weekly Standard,

May 10, 2010.

2 Sumit Ganguly, “America’s Wounded Ally,” Newsweek, April 2,

2010.

3 Evan Feigenbaum, “India’s Rise, America’s Interest,” Foreign Aff airs,

March/April 2010.

4 Arvind Panagariya, “True Driver of India–U.S. Partnership,”

Economic Times, June 23, 2010.

5 Author’s calculations, based on “Gross Domestic Product, 2009”

and “Population, 2009,” World Development Indicators Database,

World Bank, July 1, 2010.

6 Robert D. Kaplan, “South Asia’s Geography of Confl ict,” Center

for New American Security, August 2010, 15.

7 Itty Abraham, “Th e Future of Indian Foreign Policy,” Economic and

Political Weekly, October 20, 2007, 4211.

8 William J. Burns, “India’s Rise and the Promise of U.S.–Indian

Partnership,” Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, June 1,

2010, http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2010/June/201

00601165656SBlebahC0.5747906.html.

http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2010/June/20100601165656SBlebahC0.5747906.html


46

9 Gross Domestic Product 2009, PPP,” World Development

Indicators Database, World Bank, July 9, 2010.

10 Based on the UNDP’s literacy and life expectancy statistics for

China and India: “Country Fact Sheet—China” and “Country

Fact Sheet—India,” Human Development Report 2009 (New York:

United Nations Development Programme, 2009).

11 Kaplan, op. cit., 15.

12 Vikas Bajaj, “A High-Tech Titan Plagued by Potholes,” New York

Times, August 26, 2010, B1.

13 Panagariya, op. cit.

14 Ishaan Th adoor, “Singh in Washington, Making the Case for

India,” Time, November 24, 2009.

15 C. Raja Mohan, “Th e Return of the Raj,” American Interest, May-

June 2010.

16 Ashley Tellis, “New Delhi, Washington: Who Gets What?” Times

of India, January 30, 2010.

17 Jim Garamore, “Flournoy Notes India’s Growing Role as Security

Partner,” U.S. Department of Defense, July 1, 2010, http://www.

defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=59868.

18 Robert Kaplan, “Th e Geography of Chinese Power,” Foreign Aff airs,

May/June 2010, vol. 89, no. 3, 32.

19 Kaplan, “South Asia’s Geography of Confl ict,” 15.

20 C. Uday Bhaskar, “Dragon-Elephant Growl at Each Other,”

Reuters, August 29, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/

idINIndia-51139720100829.

21 Twining, op. cit., 28.

22 Mohan, op. cit.

23 Garamore, op. cit.


47

24 Bhaskar, op. cit.

25 Ahmed Rashid, “Th e Anarchic Republic of Pakistan,” National

Interest, August 24, 2010, 30.

26 James Dobbins, “U.S.-European Cooperation in Afghanistan,”

paper presented at the Aspen Strategy Group, December 4–6,

2009, http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/fi les/content/

images/1%20-%20Dobbins%20Final%20for%20Binder.pdf.

27 Ashley Tellis, India as a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for

the United States (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, July 2005), 13.

28 P. R. Chari, “Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Proliferation: Linkages

and Dissonances,” M. L. Sondhi Memorial Fund lecture, August

18, 2010, 18, http://www.ipcs.org/IPCS_Lecture_for_ML_

Sondhi_Award.pdf.

29 Ibid.

30 Mohan, op. cit.

31 Th e United States currently wants such safeguard mechanisms to

go into eff ect if there is a rise in imports of 40 percent or more

compared to a three-year fl oating average, whereas India wants

to be able to raise barriers in the event of an import rise greater

than 15 percent. Doug Palmer, “India, U.S. Urge Progress Made in

WTO Talks Be Saved,” Reuters, July 30, 2008, www.reuters.com/

article/idUSL747098220080730.

32 “Not Entirely Free, Your Honor,” Economist, July 29, 2010.

33 “Millennium Development Goal Indicators,” United Nations,

http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx, accessed September 17,

2010.

34 Urmi A. Goswami, “Reduce Trust-Defi cit in Climate Talks: India,”

Economic Times, April 20, 2010, http://economictimes.indiatimes.

com/articleshow/5834084.cms.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5834084.cms


48

35 John M. Broder, “Climate Goal Is Supported by China and India,”

New York Times, March 9, 2010.

36 Nile Gardiner and Brett Schaefer, “UN Security Council

Expansion Is Not in the US Interest,” Backgrounder (Washington:

Heritage Foundation, August 18, 2005), http://www.heritage.org/

research/reports/2005/08/un-security-council-expansion-is-not-

in-the-us-interest.

37 Jorge G. Castaneda, “Not Ready for Prime Time,” Foreign Aff airs,

September/October 2010, volume 89, no. 5, 112.

49

About the AuthorGeorge Perkovich is vice president for studies and director of the Nuclear

Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His

research focuses on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation, with a focus on

South Asia and Iran, and on the problem of justice in the international

political economy.

He is the author of the award-winning book India’s Nuclear Bomb. He

is coauthor of the Adelphi Paper Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, published

in September 2008 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Th is paper is the basis of the book, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate,

which includes seventeen critiques by thirteen eminent international

commentators. Perkovich is also coauthor of a major Carnegie report,

Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security, a blueprint for

rethinking the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. Th e report

off ers a fresh approach to deal with states and terrorists, nuclear weapons,

and fi ssile materials to ensure global safety and security.

He served as a speechwriter and foreign policy adviser to Senator Joe

Biden from 1989 to 1990. Perkovich is an adviser to the International

Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament and a

member of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Task Force on U.S. Nuclear

Policy.

51

Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceTh e Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofi t

organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and

promoting active international engagement by the United States. Founded

in 1910, its work is nonpartisan and dedicated to achieving practical results.

Th e Endowment—currently pioneering the fi rst global think tank—has

operations in China, the Middle East, Russia, Europe, and the United

States. Th ese fi ve locations include the centers of world governance

and the places whose political evolution and international policies will

most determine the near-term possibilities for international peace and

economic advance.

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